


same blood

by rayfelle



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Gen, alternative universe, teacher figure!Xanxus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-28
Updated: 2016-02-28
Packaged: 2018-05-23 18:27:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6125986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rayfelle/pseuds/rayfelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Xanxus entered Tsuna’s life when the boy was barely nine and covered with bruises and scrapes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	same blood

Tsuna loved his mother dearly. She cared and she did her best – for him. Nana was warm and she tried so hard for her son that didn’t quite make the norm of society’s demands. Tsuna also knew that it wasn’t her fault that she sometimes looked at him with pity and a soft kind of disappointment, because all mothers woshed for their children to be the best, to do the best, to be happy.

And Tsuna was nothing of those things. He was just kind of empty, to put it into words. There was nothing to him, just fear and coldness embedded deep into his soul.

Nono had sealed his flame. And with it, the old boss sealed up something much more important as well.

What Tsuna does not love is his father. Or simply put, he did not know his father enough to care – be it love or hate. Tsuna had nothing of the man, not even as much as a clear memory. All he remembered was a sleeping man, surrounded by empty alcohol bottles and his mother’s cries deep in the night. He knew that he should love the man that is never there, but as times went by he just hated. Hated and resented, especially when he found out about the _other boy_ living in Italy and enjoying the care and praise of a proud Iemitsu.

No, as Nono sealed Tsuna’s flame, the man also sealed away a part of Tsuna’s compassion.

Tsuna did not feel sorry for his mother, because she had already given up, in some ways. Even if she still tried. And Tsuna felt only cold indifference towards the father that was never home and had fathered another son, a _better son_ , somewhere far away in Italy.

…

Xanxus entered Tsuna’s life when the boy was barely nine and covered with bruises and scrapes, weighted under loneliness and acceptance of a life just not worth trying. A cousin ten years older and from his father’s side of the family, that had come here for summer vacation. Or so Nana had said while laughing during the introduction and left the two alone.

His cousin, Tsuna thought the moment their eyes truly met, was dangerous. But not in the way Nono had been, since the old man had felt like a chilling frost that took over quietly and without the victim noticing. Xanxus was a storm bottled up in a small container and at the breaking point. And Tsuna was powerless in the face of both of them. He was at their mercy; at the mercy of the bright orange flame yet again.

But Xanxus didn’t seal another part of him away. He narrowed his eyes and hissed low, dangerous. _That fucking old man. He ruined you too._

And then his flame was unsealed. Violently, painfully. But he was free and he _burned_. And there was no longer coldness inside of him, Tsuna no longer felt so wrong in his own body and there was no heaviness settled upon his awareness, _his instincts_

Since that day Xanxus became his brother, rather than just an unknown cousin from far away. And Xanxus took it upon himself to save this poor child the kind of fate he had to endure, full of unknown and panic and being forced under the control of those, who think they are in the right. He taught Tsuna how to once again understand and control the flame. How to become everything that the blood flowing in Tsuna’s veins has promised the child.

…

For years Xanxus leaves and then comes back. So unlike Tsuna’s father, that was involved in the same kind of mafia life as the cousin now turned into an older brother. There have been phones calls back and forth, updates and news swapped.

Tsuna now carried his flame with honor and pride. He didn’t flaunt, he doesn’t stand out. But he has become sure of himself, strong and unyielding in the face of those that bully and pray on the weak. Xanxus’ lessons had been engraved into him. Tsuna now walked with assurance, knew how to take someone down with a look alone, eyes glowing with the soft golden hue of his flame.

He had been taught how to behave like a predator, the top of the food chain. Because Xanxus only approved of the best, of those who reach their full potential and strength. And Tsuna, Tsuna who finally had someone who believed in him and who had become a parent, influence and confident in one person for him, the boy finally had grown and become the kind of man he was meant to be.

Vongola blood. Primo’s blood. The blood of a leader, of a fighter.

The same blood that flowed through his veins, the same flame that warmed his whole body – it pulled closer different shades of the sky. It craved others to stabilize it, to raise and hold it when the pressure was too much. His guardians, Xanxus had called them once they all met, perfect for his little brother.

Because Tsuna deserved the best. His flame _craved_ for the best. And the Rain, Cloud and Sun that had migrated towards it were _the best_. Now only Mist, Storm and Lightning remained. But Xanxus knew that sooner or later those three will come to his little brother. Like moths attracted to flame.

…

With Tsuna’s flame Nono had sealed the boy’s compassion. He felt in halves. Everything, as Xanxus later found out, the boy felt everything in halves and some things in doubles.

Pain, loneliness, sadness, terror and, strangely enough, righteousness were doubled. Later on Xanxus came to think that it was because of the sheer torture that sealing the flames brought onto his younger cousin. Followed by the decision to never let anyone feel it, if Tsuna could help to stop it from happening.

But right now, as the Tsuna sneered both at Iemitsu and Nono, with his small body taut and posed to attack, teeth bared, Xanxus could only see a wounded animal standing up to the ones who had sealed it in a steel cage. And the young adult was so proud _for_ his cousin. There was just something pleasing to see the child he had helped rise and teach stand on his own two legs and stare right into the abyss. Ready to burn it away if needed.

The two Mists, Storm and Lightning that Tsuna had saved along the way of saving himself were crowded together with the rest of the teen’s elements. A protective wall, a safeguard and a promise to kill if needed, to fight until their last breath.

For their _Sky_.

_I will burn you. I will destroy you, for everything you have done to me._ Tsuna breathed and his breath was nothing but frost and snow. _You are nothing to me_.

…

The flames burned bright and orange, illuminating the nightly sky. Xanxus and Tsuna stood side by side at the boarder of burned out land and a fought war. Vongola was now their responsibility, their burden.

Tsuna will lead Vongola to a new era, a new future. The teen will mold the Family into something that Primo had wished for while on his last breath.

Xanxus. Xanxus and his Varia will protect from the shadows and destroy anything that stands between his cousin and the future they all wished to see. Because they were brothers now, the two of them. More than blood could ever make them be. This was about a shared past, about shared pain. And nothing would ever change that.

…

Tsuna smiled at Xanxus. No longer did the boy look foreign in his own skin and closer to living dead, when they had first met. There were no bruises on his skin, no burden to be something he is not hanging over the young adult’s head. Tsuna was _free_ , he was wild. Tsuna was a wildfire – beautiful, destructive and oh so protective of what was his own. Like a dragon sat upon his pile of treasures.

_Thank you for everything, Xan. Thank you for showing me how to escape_. He whispered and slid a box across the black desk. There were messages underneath those words, meanings that only Xanxus will ever understand and bother to dig up.

Instead, the older of the two laughs rough and wild, his eyes glint deep red. _Shithead, that’s what I am for. To get you out of fucked up situations_. But he accepts everything that Tsuna gives him and offers his own heart to the boy to protect.

Two Skies. Two brothers. Two destinies burned together.


End file.
